Page:Castes and Tribes of Southern India, Volume 2.djvu/100

CHERUMAN which are carried to the neighbourhood of the temple. As they go, they leap and dance to the accompaniment of pipe and drum. One among them who acts as a Velichapad (devil-dancer) goes in front of them, and, after a good deal of dancing and loud praying in honour of the deity, they return home. 2. Vittu Iduka. — This festival consists in putting seeds, or bringing paddy seeds to the temple of the village Bhagavati. This also is an important festival, which is celebrated on the day of Bharani, the second lunar day in Kumbham. Standing at a distance assigned to them by the village authorities, where they offer prayers to Kali, they put the paddy grains, which they have brought, on a bamboo mat spread in front of them, after which they return home. In the Chittūr tāluk, there is a festival called Kathiru, celebrated in honour of the village goddess in the month of Vrischikam (November-December), when these people start from the farms of their masters, and go in procession, accompanied with the music of pipe and drum. A special feature of the Kathiru festival is the presence, at the temple of the village goddess, of a large number of dome-like structures made of bamboo and plantain stems, richly ornamented, and hung with flowers, leaves, and ears of corn. These structures are called sarakootams, and are fixed on a pair of parallel bamboo poles. These agrestic serfs bear them in grand processions, starting from their respective farms, with pipe and drum, shouting and dancing, and with fireworks. Small globular packets of palmyra leaves, in which are packed handfuls of paddy rolled up in straw, are also carried by them in huge bunches, along with the sarakootams. These packets are called kathirkootoos (collection of ears of corn), and are thrown among the crowd of